Regresar

Practical Framework for Optimal Planning of Isolated Rural Microgrids

Abstract:

In this paper, a practical methodological framework is proposed for the optimal planning of an isolated rural microgrid considering distributed energy resources (DERs) such as photovoltaic systems (PV), run-of-river micro-hydro (MH) systems, battery energy storage systems (BESS) to supply energy to isolated rural microgrids. The methodology considers the formulation of a stochastic optimization problem (SOP) that requires a previous evaluation of the renewable energy sources available in the area and the demand load profile of the community. In addition, to estimate the daily demand load curve of the rural community, the household classifier based on a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) method is used, that provides demand patterns by the use of the socio-economic characteristics of the community obtained in a survey. The methodology is applied in a community located on the banks of the Aguarico river. Three scenarios are evaluated, in which scenario I and II, only renewable energy sources are considered, scenario II is modelled including a budget constraint, that is not included in scenario I, and scenario III incorporates the implementation of gas generator set (GGS) unit in order to obtain a technical and economical viable solution, based on the renewable energy sources assessment. The results showed that a microgrid based only on renewable energy sources available in the community was not feasible because it leads to prohibitive costs. Therefore, a GGS unit was required to supply energy during the peak demand hours in the months where the hydro sources are not available, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.